Despite his discretion, he remains one of the key figures in contemporary fashion. A look back at the destiny of an extraordinary designer.
Martin Margiela was born in Genk on April 9, 1957. He is a Belgian fashion designer. In 1979, Margiela graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
Described as a « conceptual » designer, Martin Margiela has been creating unique, entirely handcrafted pieces made from recycled objects or clothing since the beginning. He was one of the first to do upcycling (which wasn’t called that at the time). He liked to use cheap materials in his high-end designs, as a kind of humor.
In 1984, Margiela left for Paris to work as an assistant designer for Jean-Paul Gaultier. In 1987, he stops working as an assistant designer for Gaultier. The following year Maison Martin Margiela is a reality and he shows his first collection.
In 1989 Margiela presents for the first time his object the hoofed shoe. This shoe is shaped like a hoof, so that the tip of the shoe splits the foot in two, as it were.
Martin Margiela feared the celebrity design culture and the loss of the quality of his clothes to the wishes of the fashion trade. So he disappeared. At once, Margiela refused interviews, refused to be photographed. He revealed his clothes on the catwalk without explanation or defense when criticized.
Margiela never showed himself on the catwalk after a show and rarely spoke to the press.
« I always liked having my name connected to the product I had created, not the face I have. »
This anonymity would translate into the fashion house’s style through the use of white labels and figures. The models on the catwalk are also shrouded in anonymity; the eyes are taped with a stripe or the face is covered in its entirety.
The 1980 Spring runway
In the fall of 1989, on an abandoned playground in the suburbs of Paris, Martin Margiela organized a show the likes of which the fashion world had never seen: the seats were distributed according to the « first come, first served » principle; the front row was filled with children from the neighborhood. The critics hated it. The industry loved it.
The idea was not just to bring fashion to everyone but to find fashion in everyone.
Much of the interest from journalists and fashion editors came from Gaultier’s support. This was the height of Jean Paul Gaultier’s popularity, and Mr. Gaultier supported Martin very much and he considered him the best designer of his generation.
You couldn’t tell the difference between a great editor and a neighbor. The most important thing for Martin was that the children were in front of it, otherwise they wouldn’t see anything. They were so excited, they laughed and screamed.
Martin hated beautifully printed invitations with calligraphy. Since they were staging the show on a children’s playground, they thought it would be an idea to have children sign the invitations, so it would be like they were inviting you to their home. The next problem was, where do you find 500 kids to draw all those invitations? So they cut rectangular pieces of cardboard and gave them to the local schools, and in their art classes they got the theme of a fashion show, and drew their interpretations.
Everyone was happy, the kids were laughing, the models were laughing too. It was a simple moment. Libération was critical of how inappropriate it was to show designer fashion in a poor part of town and that it is a shame to show such beautiful pieces in such a shabby environment.
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